Amtrak Joins California to Help Buy High-Speed Rail Gear

Amtrak agreed to work with
California, the only U.S. state planning to begin construction
on a high-speed rail project this year, to buy passenger-rail
equipment.

Amtrak, the U.S. long-distance passenger railroad, will ask
companies starting today for information on building as many as
60 trains, which will add units on the Northeast Corridor,
replace Acela trains and provide equipment for California, Chief
Executive Officer Joseph Boardman said.

New trains might cost $35 million to $55 million each,
Boardman said in Washington, declining to estimate the value of
a contract. Amtrak and California, which plans to begin fast-
train rail operations in 2022, will seek bids from companies by
September, Boardman said.

“If everyone’s out issuing their own orders, everyone’s
subject to what the industry can provide,” said Jeff Morales,
CEO of the California High-Speed Rail Authority. “We can drive
the market in a way we can’t if we purchase separately.”

California plans to lay tracks for trains running as fast
as 220 miles an hour (354 kilometers an hour) in a $68.4 billion
project linking San Francisco with Los Angeles.

Bombardier Inc. (BBD/B) of Montreal and Levallois-Perret, France-
based Alstom SA (ALO) built Amtrak’s Acela trains for the route
between Boston and Washington. They run on electrified track and
are the fastest trains in service in the U.S.

Congress has effectively cut off using federal money to
fund California’s rail project. Representative Jeff Denham, a
California Republican and critic of the state project, was named
this week as vice chairman of the rail subcommittee of the House
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Boardman said the plan for Amtrak and California to order
equipment jointly is “about doing the right thing for the
United States” and not a new way to get U.S. money to the
California project.